A NEW WAY TO LEARN GAELIC.
After the captain and the pilot had retired, sais I, “Miss Jessie,
sposin we young folks—(ah me, it is time to get a new word, I guess,
for that one has been used so long, it’s e’en amost worn out
now)—sposin we young folks leave the doctor and your father to finish
their huntin’ stories, and let us go to the other room, and have a dish
of chat about things in general, and sweethearts in particular.”
“Oh, we live too much alone here,” said she, “to know anything of such
matters, but we will go if you will promise to tell us one of your
funny stories. They say you have written a whole book full of them; how
I should like to see it.”
“Would you, Miss?” said I, “well, then, you shall have one, for I have
a copy on board I believe, and I shall be only too proud if you will
read it to remember me by. But my best stories ain’t in my books.
Somehow or another, when I want them they won’t come, and at other
times when I get a goin talkin, I can string them together like onions,
one after the other, till the twine is out. I have a heap of them, but
they are all mixed and confused like in my mind, and it seems as if I
never could find the one I need. Do you work in worsted, Miss?”
“Well, a little,” sais she. “It is only town-bred girls, who have
nothing to attend to but their dress and to go to balls, that have
leisure to amuse themselves that way; but I can work a little, though I
could never do anything fit to be seen or examined.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said I, and I paused, and she looked as if she
didn’t over half like my taking her at her word that way. “I shouldn’t
wonder,” said I, “for I am sure your eyes would fade the colour out of
the worsted.”
“Why, Mr Slick,” said she, drawing herself up a bit, “what nonsense you
_do_ talk, what a quiz you be.”
“Fact,” sais I, “Miss, I assure you, never try it again, you will be
sure to spoil it. But as I was a sayin, Miss, when you see a thread of
a particular colour, you know whether you have any more like it or not,
so when a man tells me a story, I know whether I have one of the same
kind to match it or not, and if so, I know where to lay my hand on it;
but I must have a clue to my yarns.”
Squire, there is something very curious about memory, I don’t think
there is such a thing as total forgetfulness. I used once to think
there was, but I don’t now. It used to seem to me that things rusted
out, but now it appears as if they were only misplaced, or overlaid, or
stowed away like where you can’t find them; but depend on it, when once
there, they remain for ever. How often you are asked, “Don’t you
recollect this or that?” and you answer, “No, I never heard, or saw it,
or read it,” as the case may be. And when the time, and place, and
circumstances are told you, you say, “Stop a bit, I do now mind
something about it, warn’t it so and so, or this way, or that way,” and
finally up it comes, all fresh to your recollection. Well, until you
get the clue given you, or the key note is struck, you are ready to
take your oath you never heard of it afore. Memory has many cells: Some
of them ain’t used much, and dust and cobwebs get about them, and you
can’t tell where the hinge is, or can’t easily discarn the secret
spring; but open it once, and whatever is stowed away there is as safe
and sound as ever. I have a good many capital stories poked away in
them cubby-holes, that I can’t just lay my hand on when I want to; but
now and then, when looking for something else, I stumble upon them by
accident. Tell you what, as for forgettin’ a thing tee-totally, I don’t
believe there is sich a thing in natur. But to get back to my story.
“Miss,” sais I, “I can’t just at this present moment call to mind a
story to please you. Some of them are about hosses, or clocks, or rises
taken out of folks, or dreams, or courtships, or ghosts, or what not;
but few of them will answer, for they are either too short or too
long.”
“Oh,” says Catherine Fraser, “tell us a courtship; I dare say you will
make great fun of it.”
“No, no,” says Jessie, “tell us a ghost story. Oh! I delight in them.”
“Oh,” said Janet, “tell us about a dream. I know one myself which came
out as correct as provin’ a sum.”
“That’s it, Miss Janet,” said I; “do you tell me that story, please,
and it’s hard if I can’t find one that will please you in return for
it.”
“Yes, do, dear,” said Jessie; “tell Mr Slick that story, for it’s a
true one, and I should like to hear what he thinks of it, or how he can
account for it.”
“Well,” said Janet, “you must excuse me, Mr Slick, for any mistakes I
make, for I don’t speak very good English, and I can hardly tell a
story all through in that language.
“I have a brother that lives up one of the branches of the Buctouche
River in New Brunswick. He bought a tract of land there four or five
years ago, on which there was a house and barn, and about a hundred
acres of cleared land. He made extensive improvements on it, and went
to a great expense in clearing up the stumps, and buying stock and
farming implements, and what not. One season, between plantin’ and
harvest, he run short of money for his common daily use, and to pay
some little debts he owed, and he was very dull about it. He said he
knew he could come here and borrow it from father, but he didn’t like
to be away from home so long, and hardly knew how the family was to get
on or to pay the wages till his return, so it was agreed that I was to
go the next Monday in a vessel bound for Halifax and bring him what he
wanted.
“At that time, he had a field back in the woods he was cultivating.
Between that and the front on the river, was a poor sand flat covered
with spruce, birch, and poplar, and not worth the expense of bringing
to for the plough. The road to the back field ran through this wood
land. He was very low-spirited about his situation, for he said if he
was to borrow the money of a merchant, he would require a mortgage on
his place, and perhaps sell it before he knew where he was. Well, that
night he woke up his wife, and said to her—
“‘Mary,’ said he, ‘I have had a very curious dream just now. I dreamed
that as I was going out to the back lot with the oxcart, I found a
large sum of money all in dollars in the road there.’
“‘Well,’ says Mary, ‘I wish it was true, John, but it is too good news
for us. The worriment we have had about money lately has set you a
dreaming. Janet sails on Monday, she will soon be back, and then it
will all be right; so go to sleep again, dear.’
“Well, in the morning, when he and his wife got up, he never spoke or
thought any more about the dream, but as soon as breakfast was over, he
and his man yoked up the oxen, put them to the cart, and lifted the
harrow into it, and started for the field. The servant drove the team,
and John walked behind with his head down, a turning over in his mind
whether he couldn’t sell something off the farm to keep matters a-goin’
till I should return, when all at once, as they were passing through
the wood, he observed that there was a line of silver dollars turned up
by one of the wheels of the cart, and continued for the space of sixty
feet and then ceased.
“The moment he saw the money he thought of his dream, and he was so
overjoyed that he was on the point of calling out to the man to stop,
but he thought it was more prudent as they were alone in the woods to
say nothing about it. So he walked on, and joined the driver, and kept
him in talk for awhile. And then, as if he had suddenly thought of
something, said, ‘Jube, do you proceed to the field and go to work till
I come. I shall have to go to the house for a short time.’
“Well, as soon as he got out of sight of the cart, off he ran home as
hard as he could lay legs to it, only stopping to take up a handful of
the coins to make sure they were real.
“‘Mary, Mary,’ sais he, ‘the dream has come true; I have found the
money—see here is some of it; there is no mistake;’ and he threw a few
pieces down on the hearth and rung them. ‘They are genuine Spanish
crowns. Do you and Janet bring the market-basket, while I go for a
couple of hoes, and let us gather it all up.’
“Well, sure enough, when we came to the place he mentioned, there was
the wheel-track full of dollars. He and I hoed each side of the rut,
which seemed to be in a sort of yellow powder, like the dust of rotten
wood, and got out all we could find. We afterwards tried under the
opposite wheel, and behind and before the rut, but could find no more,
and when we got home we counted it, and found we had eighty-two pounds,
five shillings.
“‘Well, this is a God-send, Mary, ain’t it?’ said brother; and she
threw her arms round his neck, and cried for joy as she kissed him.”
“Which way,” said I, “show me, Miss, how she did it, only you may laugh
instead of cry if you like.”
“Not being a wife,” said she, with great quietness, “I cannot show you
myself, but you may imagine it, it will do just as well, or dream it,
and that will do better.
“Well, John was a scrupulous man, and he was determined to restore the
money, if he could find an owner for it; but he could hear of no one
who had lost any, nor any tradition in that place that any one ever had
done so since the first settlement of the country. All that he could
discover was, that about forty years before, an old Frenchman had lived
somewhere thereabouts alone, in the midst of the woods. Who he was, or
what became of him, nobody knew; all he could hear was, that a party of
lumbermen had, some years afterwards, found his house amidst a second
growth of young wood that wholly concealed it, and that it contained
his furniture, cooking utensils, and trunks, as he had left them. Some
supposed he had been devoured by bears or wolves; others, that he had
been lost in the woods; and some, that he had died by his own hands.
“On hearing this, John went to examine his habitation, or the remains
of it, and he found that about four acres around it were covered with
the second growth, as it is called, which was plainly to be
distinguished from the forest, as the trees were not only not so large
or so old as the neighbouring ones, but, as is always the case, were of
a different description of wood altogether. On a careful inspection of
the spot where he found the money, it appeared that the wheel had
passed lengthways along an enormous old decayed pine, in the hollow of
which he supposed the money must have been hid; and when the tree fell,
the dollars had rolled along its centre fifty feet or more, and
remained there until the wood was rotten, and had crumbled into dust.
“There, Sir, there is my story: it is a true one, I assure you, for I
was present at the time. What do you think of it?”
“Well,” sais I, “if he had never heard a rumour, nor had any reason to
suppose that the money had been hid there, why it was a singular thing,
and looks very much like a—”
“Like a what?” said she.
“Like a supply that one couldn’t count upon a second time, that’s all.”
“It’s a dream that was fulfilled though,” she said; “and that don’t
often happen, does it?”1
1 The names of the persons and river are alone changed in this
extraordinary story. The actors are still living, and are persons of
undoubted veracity and respectability.
“Unless,” sais I, “a young lady was to dream now that she was a going
to be married to a certain person, and that does often come true. Do
you—”
“Oh, nonsense,” said she. “Come, do tell us your story now, you know
you promised me you would if I related mine.”
“Yes,” said Miss Jessie; “come now, Mr Slick, that’s a good man, do?”
Sais I, “Miss, I will give you my book instead, and that will tell you
a hundred of them.”
“Yes, but when will you give it to me?” she replied.
“To-morrow,” said I, “as soon as I go on board. But mind, there is one
condition.” And I said in Gaelic: “_Feumieth thu pog thoir dhomh eur a
shon_ (you must give me a kiss for it).”
“Oh,” said she, lookin’ not over pleased, I consaited; but perhaps it
was because the other girls laughed liked anything, as if it was a
capital joke, “that’s not fair, you said you would give it, and now you
want to sell it. If that’s the case I will pay the money for it.”
“Oh, fie,” sais I, “Miss Jessie.”
“Well, I want to know!”
“No, indeed; what I meant was to give you that book to remember me by
when I am far away from here, and I wanted you to give me a little
token, _O do bhilean boidheach_ (from your pretty lips), that I should
remember the longest day I live.”
“You mean that you would go away, laugh, and forget right off. No, that
won’t do, but if you must have a token I will look up some little
keepsake to exchange for it. Oh, dear, what a horrid idea,” she said,
quite scorney like, “to trade for a kiss; it’s the way father buys his
fish, he gives salt for them, or flour, or some such barter, oh, Mr
Slick, I don’t think much of you. But for goodness gracious sake how
did you learn Gaelic?”
“From lips, dear,” said I, “and that’s the reason I shall never forget
it.”
“No, no,” said she, “but how on earth did you ever pick it up.”
“I didn’t pick it up, Miss,” said I, “I kissed it up, and as you want a
story I might as well tell you that as any other.”
“It depends upon what sort of a story it is,” said she, colouring.
“Oh, yes,” said the Campbell girls, who didn’t appear quite so skittish
as she was, “do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one out of it.
Come, begin.”
Squire, you are older than I be, and I suppose you will think all this
sort of thing is clear sheer nonsense, but depend upon it a kiss is a
great mystery. There is many a thing we know that we can’t explain,
still we are sure it is a fact for all that. Why should there be a sort
of magic in shaking hands, which seems only a mere form, and sometimes
a painful one too, for some folks wring your fingers off amost, and
make you fairly dance with pain, they hurt you so. It don’t give much
pleasure at any time. What the magic of it is we can’t tell, but so it
is for all that. It seems only a custom like bowing and nothing else,
still there is more in it than meets the eye. But a kiss fairly
electrifies you, it warms your blood and sets your heart a beatin’ like
a brass drum, and makes your eyes twinkle like stars in a frosty night.
It tante a thing ever to be forgot. No language can express it, no
letters will give the sound. Then what in natur is equal to the flavour
of it? What an aroma it has! How spiritual it is! It ain’t gross, for
you can’t feed on it; it don’t cloy, for the palate ain’t required to
test its taste. It is neither visible, nor tangible, nor portable, nor
transferable. It is not a substance, nor a liquid, nor a vapour. It has
neither colour nor form. Imagination can’t conceive it. It can’t be
imitated or forged. It is confined to no clime or country, but is
ubiquitous. It is disembodied when completed, but is instantly
reproduced, and so is immortal. It is as old as the creation, and yet
is as young and fresh as ever. It preëxisted, still exists, and always
will exist. It pervades all natur. The breeze as it passes kisses the
rose, and the pendant vine stoops down and hides with its tendrils its
blushes, as it kisses the limpid stream that waits in an eddy to meet
it, and raises its tiny waves, like anxious lips to receive it. Depend
upon it Eve learned it in Paradise, and was taught its beauties,
virtues, and varieties by an angel, there is something so transcendent
in it.
How it is adapted to all circumstances! There is the kiss of welcome
and of parting, the long-lingering, loving present one, the stolen or
the mutual one, the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow, the seal of
promise, and the receipt of fulfilment. Is it strange therefore that a
woman is invincible whose armoury consists of kisses, smiles, sighs,
and tears? Is it any wonder that poor old Adam was first tempted, and
then ruined? It is very easy for preachers to get up with long faces
and tell us he ought to have been more of a man. My opinion is, if he
had been less of a man, it would have been better for him. But I am not
agoin’ to preach; so I will get back to my story; but, Squire, I shall
always maintain to my dying day, that kissing is a sublime mystery.
“Well,” sais I, “ladies, I was broughten up to home, on my father’s
farm, and my edecation, what little I had of it, I got from the
Minister of Slickville, Mr Joshua Hopewell, who was a friend of my
father’s, and was one of the best men I believe that ever lived. He was
all kindness and all gentleness, and was at the same time one of the
most learned men in the United States. He took a great fancy to me, and
spared no pains with my schooling, and I owe everything I have in the
world to his instruction. I didn’t mix much with other boys, and, from
living mostly with people older than myself, acquired an old-fashioned
way that I have never been able to shake off yet; all the boys called
me ‘Old Slick.’ In course, I didn’t learn much of life that way. All I
knew about the world beyond our house and hisin, was from books, and
from hearing him talk, and he convarsed better than any book I ever set
eyes on. Well, in course I grew up unsophisticated like, and I think I
may say I was as innocent a young man as ever you see.”
Oh, how they all laughed at that! “You ever innocent!” said they.
“Come, that’s good; we like that; it’s capital! Sam Slick an innocent
boy! Well, that must have been before you were weaned, or talked in
joining hand, at any rate. How simple we are, ain’t we?” and they
laughed themselves into a hooping-cough amost.
“Fact, Miss Janet,” said I, “I assure you” (for she seemed the most
tickled at the idea of any of them) “I was, indeed. I won’t go for to
pretend to say some of it didn’t rub off when it became dry, when I was
fishing in the world on my own hook; but, at the time I am speaking of,
when I was twenty-one next grass, I was so guileless, I couldn’t see no
harm in anything.”
“So I should think,” said she; “it’s so like you.”
“Well, at that time there was a fever, a most horrid typhus fever,
broke out in Slickville, brought there by some shipwrecked emigrants.
There was a Highland family settled in the town the year afore,
consisting of old Mr Duncan Chisholm, his wife, and daughter Flora. The
old people were carried off by the disease, and Flora was left without
friends or means, and the worst of it was, she could hardly speak a
word of intelligible English. Well, Minister took great pity on her,
and spoke to father about taking her into his house, as sister Sally
was just married, and the old lady left without any companion; and they
agreed to take her as one of them, and she was in return to help mother
all she could. So, next day, she came, and took up her quarters with
us. Oh my, Miss Janet, what a beautiful girl she was! She was as tall
as you are, Jessie, and had the same delicate little feet and hands.”
I threw that in on purpose, for women, in a general way, don’t like to
hear others spoken of too extravagant, particularly if you praise them
for anything they hain’t got; but if you praise them for anything they
pride themselves on, they are satisfied, because it shows you estimate
them also at the right valy, too. It took, for she pushed her foot out
a little, and rocked it up and down slowly, as if she was rather proud
of it.
“Her hair was a rich auburn, not red (I don’t like that at all, for it
is like a lucifer-match, apt to go off into a flame spontinaciously
sometimes), but a golden colour, and lots of it too, just about as much
as she could cleverly manage; eyes like diamonds; complexion, red and
white roses; and teeth, not quite so regular as yours, Miss, but as
white as them; and lips—lick!—they reminded one of a curl of rich
rose-leaves, when the bud first begins to swell and spread out with a
sort of peachy bloom on them, ripe, rich, and chock full of kisses.”
“Oh, the poor ignorant boy!” said Janet, “you didn’t know nothing, did
you?”
“Well, I didn’t,” sais I, “I was as innocent as a child; but nobody is
so ignorant as not to know a splendiferous gall when he sees her,” and
I made a motion of my head to her, as much, as to say, “Put that cap
on, for it just fits you.”
“My sakes, what a neck she had! not too long and thin, for that looks
goosey; nor too short and thick, for that gives a clumsy appearance to
the figure; but betwixt and between, and perfection always lies there,
just midway between extremes. But her bust—oh! the like never was seen
in Slickville, for the ladies there, in a gineral way, have no—”
“Well, well,” said Jessie, a little snappish, for praisin’ one gall to
another ain’t the shortest way to win their regard, “go on with your
story of Gaelic.”
“And her waist, Jessie, was the most beautiful thing, next to your’n, I
ever see. It was as round as an apple, and anything that is round, you
know, is larger than it looks, and I wondered how much it would
measure. I never see such an innocent girl as she was. Brought up to
home, and in the country, like me, she knew no more about the ways of
the world than I did. She was a mere child, as I was; she was only
nineteen years old, and neither of us knew anything of society rules.
One day I asked her to let me measure her waist with my arm, and I did,
and then she measured mine with her’n, and we had a great dispute which
was the largest, and we tried several times before we ascertained there
was only an inch difference between us. I never was so glad in my life
as when she came to stay with us; she was so good-natured, and so
cheerful, and so innocent, it was quite charming.
“Father took a wonderful shindy to her, for even old men can’t help
liking beauty. But, somehow, I don’t think mother did; and it appears
to me now, in looking back upon it, that she was afraid I should like
her too much. I consaited she watched us out of the corner of her
glasses, and had her ears open to hear what we said; but p’raps it was
only my vanity, for I don’t know nothin’ about the working of a woman’s
heart even now. I am only a bachelor yet, and how in the world should I
know anything more about any lady than what I knew about poor Flora? In
the ways of women I am still as innocent as a child; I do believe that
they could persuade me that the moon is nothin’ but an eight-day clock
with an illuminated face. I ain’t vain, I assure you, and never brag of
what I don’t know, and I must say, I don’t even pretend to understand
them.”
“Well, I never!” said Jessie.
“Nor I,” said Janet.
“Did you ever, now!” said Catherine. “Oh dear, how soft you are, ain’t
you?”
“Always was, ladies,” said I, “and am still as soft as dough. Father
was very kind to her, but he was old and impatient, and a little hard
of hearing, and he couldn’t half the time understand her. One day she
came in with a message from neighbour Dearborne, and sais she,
“‘Father—’
“‘Colonel, if you please, dear,’ said mother, ‘he is not your father;’
and the old lady seemed as if she didn’t half fancy any body calling
him that but her own children. Whether that is natural or not, Miss
Jessie,” said I, “I don’t know, for how can I tell what women thinks?”
“Oh, of course not,” said Janet, “you are not waywise, and so artless;
you don’t know, of course!”
“Exactly,” sais I; “but I thought mother spoke kinder cross to her, and
it confused the gall.
“Says Flora, ‘Colonel Slick, Mr Dearborne says—says—’ Well, she
couldn’t get the rest out; she couldn’t find the English. ‘Mr Dearborne
says—’
“‘Well, what the devil does he say?’ said father, stampin’ his foot,
out of all patience with her.
“It frightened Flora, and off she went out of the room crying like
anything.
“‘That girl talks worse and worse,’ said mother.
“‘Well, I won’t say that,’ says father, a little mollified, ‘for she
can’t talk at all, so there is no worse about it. I am sorry though I
scared her. I wish somebody would teach her English.’
“‘I will,’ sais I, ‘father, and she shall teach me Gaelic in return.’
“‘Indeed you shan’t,’ sais mother; ‘you have got something better to do
than larning her; and as for Gaelic I can’t bear it. It’s a horrid
outlandish language, and of no earthly use whatever under the blessed
sun. It’s worse than Indian.’
“‘Do, Sam,’ said father; ‘it’s an act of kindness, and she is an
orphan, and besides, Gaelic may be of great use to you in life. I like
Gaelic myself; we had some brave Jacobite Highland soldiers in our army
in the war that did great service, but unfortunately nobody could
understand them. And as for orphans, when I think how many fatherless
children we made for the British—’
“‘You might have been better employed,’ said mother, but he didn’t hear
her, and went right on.
“‘I have a kindly feelin’ towards them. She is a beautiful girl that.’
“‘If it warn’t for her carrotty hair and freckled face,’ said mother,
looking at me, ‘she wouldn’t be so awful ugly after all, would she?’
“‘Yes, Sam,’ sais father, ‘teach her English for heaven’s sake; but
mind, she must give you lessons in Gaelic. Languages is a great thing.’
“‘It’s great nonsense,’ said mother, raisin’ her voice.
“‘It’s my orders,’ said father, holding up his head and standing erect.
‘It’s my orders, marm, and they must be obeyed;’ and he walked out of
the room as stiff as a ramrod, and as grand as a Turk.
“‘Sam,’ sais mother, when we was alone, ‘let the gall be; the less she
talks the more she’ll work. Do you understand, my dear?’
“‘That’s just my idea, mother,’ sais I.
“‘Then you won’t do no such nonsense, will you, Sammy?’
“‘Oh no!’ sais I, ‘I’ll just go through the form now and then to please
father, but that’s all. Who the plague wants Gaelic? If all the
Highlands of Scotland were put into a heap, and then multiplied by
three, they wouldn’t be half as big as the White Mountains, would they,
marm? They are just nothin’ on the map, and high hills, like high
folks, are plaguy apt to have barren heads.’
“‘Sam,’ said she, a pattin’ of me on the cheek, ‘you have twice as much
sense as your father has after all. You take after me.’
“I was so simple, I didn’t know what to do. So I said yes to mother and
yes to father; for I knew I must honour and obey my parents, so I
thought I would please both. I made up my mind I wouldn’t get books to
learn Gaelic or teach English, but do it by talking, and that I
wouldn’t mind father seein’ me, but I’d keep a bright look out for the
old lady.”
“Oh dear! how innocent that was, warn’t it?” said they.
“Well, it was,” said I; “I didn’t know no better then, and I don’t now;
and what’s more, I think I would do the same agin, if it was to do over
once more.”
“I have no doubt you would,” said Janet.
“Well, I took every opportunity when mother was not by to learn words.
I would touch her hand and say, ‘What is that?’ And she would say,
_‘Làuch,’_ and her arm, her head, and her cheek, and she would tell me
the names; and her eyes, her nose, and her chin, and so on; and then I
would touch her lips, and say, ‘What’s them?’ And she’d say.
‘_Bhileau?’_ And then I’d kiss her, and say, ‘What’s that?’ And she’d
say. _‘Pog.’_ But she was so artless, and so was I; we didn’t know
that’s not usual unless people are courtin; for we hadn’t seen anything
of the world then.
“Well, I used to go over that lesson every time I got a chance, and
soon got it all by heart but that word _Pog_ (kiss), which I never
could remember. She said I was very stupid, and I must say it over and
over again till I recollected it. Well, it was astonishing how quick
she picked up English, and what progress I made in Gaelic; and if it
hadn’t been for mother, who hated the language like pyson, I do believe
I should soon have mastered it so as to speak it as well as you do. But
she took every opportunity she could to keep us apart, and whenever I
went into the room where Flora was spinning, or ironing, she would
either follow and take a chair, and sit me out, or send me away of an
errand, or tell me to go and talk to father, who was all alone in the
parlour, and seemed kinder dull. I never saw a person take such a
dislike to the language as she did; and she didn’t seem to like poor
Flora either, for no other reason as I could see under the light of the
livin’ sun, but because she spoke it; for it was impossible not to love
her—she was so beautiful, so artless, and so interesting, and so
innocent. But so it was.
“Poor thing! I pitied her. The old people couldn’t make out half she
said, and mother wouldn’t allow me, who was the only person she could
talk to, to have any conversation with her if she could help it. It is
a bad thing to distrust young people, it makes them artful at last; and
I really believe it had that effect on me to a certain extent. The
unfortunate girl often had to set up late ironing, or something or
another. And if you will believe it now, mother never would let me sit
up with her to keep her company and talk to her; but before she went to
bed herself, always saw me off to my own room. Well, it’s easy to make
people go to bed, but it ain’t just quite so easy to make them stay
there. So when I used to hear the old lady get fairly into hers, for my
room was next to father’s, though we went by different stairs to them,
I used to go down in my stocking feet, and keep her company; for I
pitied her from my heart. And then we would sit in the corner of the
fire-place and talk Gaelic half the night. And you can’t think how
pleasant it was. You laugh, Miss Janet, but it really was delightful;
they were the happiest hours I almost ever spent.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” she said, “of course they were.”
“If you think so, Miss,” said I, “p’raps you would finish the lessons
with me this evening, if you have nothing particular to do.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, laughing like anything. “I can speak
English sufficient for my purpose, and I agree with your mother, Gaelic
in this country is of no sort of use whatever; at least I am so artless
and unsophisticated as to think so. But go on, Sir.”
“Well, mother two or three times came as near as possible catching me,
for she was awful afraid of lights and fires, she said, and couldn’t
sleep sound if the coals weren’t covered up with ashes, the hearth
swept, and the broom put into a tub of water, and she used to get up
and pop into the room very sudden; and though she warn’t very light of
foot, we used to be too busy repeating words to keep watch as we
ought.”
“What an artless couple,” said Janet; “well I never! how you can have
the face to pretend so, I don’t know! Well, you do beat all!’
“A suspicious parent,” sais I, “Miss, as I said before, makes an artful
child. I never knew what guile was before that. Well, one night; oh
dear, it makes my heart ache to think of it, it was the last we ever
spent together. Flora was starching muslins, mother had seen me off to
my room, and then went to hers, when down I crept in my stockin feet as
usual, puts a chair into the chimney corner, and we sat down and
repeated our lessons. When we came to the word _Pog_ (kiss), I always
used to forget it; and it’s very odd, for it’s the most beautiful one
in the language. We soon lost all caution, and it sounded so loud and
sharp it started mother; and before we knew where we were, we heard her
enter the parlour which was next to us. In an instant I was off and
behind the entry door, and Flora was up and at work. Just then the old
lady came in as softly as possible, and stood and surveyed the room all
round. I could see her through the crack of the door, she actually
seemed disappointed at not finding me there.
“‘What noise was that I heard, Flora?’ she said, speakin’ as mild as if
she was actilly afraid to wake the cat up.
“Flora lifted the centre of the muslin she was starching with one hand,
and makin’ a hollow under it in the palm of the other, she held it
close up to the old woman’s face, and clapped it; and it made the very
identical sound of the smack she had heard, and the dear child repeated
it in quick succession several times. The old lady jumped back the
matter of a foot or more, she posi_tively_ looked skared, as if the old
gentleman would think somebody was a kissin’ of her.
“Oh dear, I thought I should have teeheed right out. She seemed utterly
confounded, and Flora looked, as she was, the dear critter, so artless
and innocent! It dumbfoundered her completely. Still she warn’t quite
satisfied.
“‘What’s this chair doing so far in the chimbley corner?’ said she.
“How glad I was there warn’t two there. The fact is, we never used but
one, we was quite young, and it was always big enough for us both.
“Flora talked Gaelic as fast as hail, slipt off her shoes, sat down on
it, put her feet to the fire, folded her arms across her bosom, laid
her head back and looked so sweet and so winnin’ into mother’s face,
and said, ‘_cha n’eil Beurl’_ (I have no English), and then proceeded
in Gaelic—
“‘If you hadn’t sat in that place yourself, when you was young, I guess
you wouldn’t be so awful scared at it, you old goose you.’
“I thought I never saw her look so lovely. Mother was not quite
persuaded she was wrong after all. She looked all round agin, as if she
was sure I was there, and then came towards the door where I was, so I
sloped up-stairs like a shadow on the wall, and into bed in no time;
but she followed up and came close to me, and holdin the candle in my
face, said:
“‘Sam, are you asleep?’
“Well, I didn’t answer.
“‘Sam,’ said she, ‘why don’t you speak?’ and she shook me.
“‘Hullo,’ sais I, pretendin’ to wake up, ‘what’s the matter! have I
overslept myself? is it time to get up?’ and I put out my arm to rub my
eyes, and lo and behold I exposed my coat sleeve.
“‘No, Sam,’ said she, ‘you couldn’t oversleep yourself, for you haven’t
slept at all, you ain’t even ondressed.’
“‘Ain’t I,’ said I, ‘are you sure?’
“‘Why look here,’ said she, throwin’ down the clothes and pullin’ my
coat over my head till she nearly strangled me.
“‘Well, I shouldn’t wonder if I hadn’t stripped,’ sais I. ‘When a
feller is so peskilly sleepy as I be, I suppose he is glad to turn in
any way.’
“She never spoke another word, but I saw a storm was brewin, and I
heard her mutter to herself, ‘Creation! what a spot of work! I’ll have
no teaching of ‘mother tongue’ here.’ Next morning she sent me to
Boston of an errand, and when I returned, two days after, Flora was
gone to live with sister Sally. I have never forgiven myself for that
folly; but really it all came of our being so artless and so innocent.
There was no craft in either of us. She forgot to remove the chair from
the chimbley corner, poor simple-minded thing, and I forgot to keep my
coat sleeve covered. Yes, yes, it all came of our being too innocent;
but that’s the way, ladies, I learned Gaelic.”